One thing Anne failed with was showing how the animals were being created/birthed and why the ethnic nomads had been allocated space at Landing. We'll learn later - though I think it would have been better put in now - that aside from a very small handful of "gestational mothers" all the animals the colony needed or thought they would need were brought out as fertilized embryos. Thus having to put in requisitions for horses, dogs, etc.

Oh, and I don't know if you've read the later book - The Renegades of Pern - yet or the short story "The Girl Who Heard Dragons" - but both feature the ninth pass version of the nomadic groups. They're called "traders" or "trader clans" instead of travelers and seem to be a mix of the traditional ethnic nomads and long-haul truckers by the ninth pass.